


Behind The Scenes

by glorafin



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Explicit Language, Gen, Metafiction, Swearing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-20
Updated: 2014-02-11
Packaged: 2018-01-02 01:52:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1051144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glorafin/pseuds/glorafin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The powers that be at Modest arrange a meeting between the guys and a new PR called Mike.</p><p>How should they deal with their public images at this point of their career? Should they still interact with their fans in the same way? Should the distant future of the band be discussed early? Or have they the luxury to let things go as they are for the time being? </p><p>What rumours should be allowed to float around? Which ones should be quelled at all cost?</p><p>Those difficult questions sometimes mean difficult answers.</p><p>EDIT : This is now one of the 1D fics with the greatest hits-over-kudos ratio ever (900+ at the last count). You may want to read it just for that. :p Weirdly (or maybe not that weirdly, I don't want to think too much about my feelings on this), I'm becoming increasingly proud of that achievement. It really must have struck a chord that resonates with One Direction fans, albeit not in a pleasant way. It was never my intention to upset readers and/or fans....and If I did, I'm sorry. But I'll say this again : whatever you may think after reading it, the source of this story was my love for the band and its members, and my worries about their future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Introduction - The state of the band

**Author's Note:**

> This story contains quite a lot of what could be considered as canon facts, to the point that I don't think I have knowingly made up anything about the members of One Direction, just used information I found on the Web. The question of whether that information is actually true is irrelevant to me. I only use it as a starting point for my story. 
> 
> Quite obviously too, this stays a work of fiction and nothing should be implied from it. When trying to go behind the scenes and imagine how the band is run from within, I have no doubt I am sometimes being incredibly naive while at others I'm exaggerating how cynical the boys and their management need to be.
> 
> I have always been interested in how a boy band as massive as 1D deals with its public image. When you see five of them act on television or on stage, what is scripted? What is spontaneous? What freedom do the five of them really have? Are they rattling their chains or happy to play a part as long as the money comes in? Are they even consciously playing a part or being completely true to themselves? 
> 
> I find all those questions fascinating. And yes, I do love them. I have the CDs and the concert tickets to prove it. This is not a way for me to "diss" them, but only an attempt to put myself in their shoes and see how it would feel.
> 
> This story has been written after a semi-awake dream I had one night. The writing is most probably horrible, especially as English is not my first language. Edits are frequent well after posting. Anyone who is willing to help as a beta is welcome to contact me. 
> 
> As always with me, it's mostly dialogue. I'm a playwright masquerading as a fanfic author. If you're allergic to reading about people talking, it might be a good idea to skip this.
> 
> Feedback and constructive criticism are more than welcome.

When the door of the conference room opened, five exhausted faces turned slowly toward it. Entering the room, Mike was surprised by how tired and lifeless the band looked, how bored they all seemed to be at the idea of attending yet another meeting. It made him think that the life of mega-successful boybanders might not be all it was cracked up to be.

After sitting in the chair that was obviously destined to him, across the table from the band, he said, "Hi guys. Let me introduce myself, I'm Mike, and, as I'm sure you've already been told, I am sent this morning by Syco and Modest to meet with you and discuss your image.'

Unsure of how that announcement was going to get received, he added, "We are going to have a great time! Hurrah!"

 

Judging by Liam's sigh, his audience was not convinced. "Not again. How many meetings have we had already? Ten? Just for this year.  What can there be left to talk about?"

 

"Yes. It's another one. Sorry. But as you can see, this one is a little different. I'm new and we are alone. This is a heart-to-heart and everything we talk about today will stay between us if you want it to. This is not an emergency meeting needing immediate results. I mean, last week's Jonathan Ross interview was good and went mostly according to plan, didn't it? Niall's wee-incident excluded I mean. Huh, dare I hope that particular incident wasn't actually planned?"

 

Louis sniggered, and they all smiled while Zayn said, "Not planned by management, no. But I dared Niall to do it as a forfeit when he lost a game at FIFA 12. Served him right to be such a lousy striker."

 

Mike slowly shook his head. "If that's the kind of dares you get up to during promo tours, I can see why I was asked to come and meet with you. A 20-year-old man shouldn't act like a schoolboy dying for a wee during class. Even in panto this would be embarrassing to watch. Aren't you supposed to act as grown-ups now? You certainly ask enough to be treated as such in interviews."

 

"Come on man. Don't start. It was just a bit of a laugh. No harm done," said Liam. "There's really no need to make a big deal out of it. Besides, it went quite well with the audience."

 

Mike seemed willing to concede the point. "Yes, it did. To my ears, the audience during the show sounded quite young, which probably helped. But the more that kind of behaviour goes on, the more the needed transition you've got to make toward the second part of your career will be difficult to achieve... And that's basically why I'm here today. Some higher-ups in Modest and Syco's ranks, and yes, that includes 'Uncle Simon', feel that it is becoming more and more difficult to market you in the usual way, like a bunch of lads enjoying life and having fun with their fame. Once there are tattoos, pregnancy rumours and wedding bells ringing on the horizon, marketing you as you've been marketed so far, which is, if you pardon my French, as fresh meat, romantically and sexually available to all your fans, becomes more and more tricky, and more and more gruesome, I might add, since your fans are still mostly underage."

 

The words "fresh meat" seemed to make quite an impression on Niall and Harry, who both went a bit pink.

 

"Don't get me wrong," continued Mike. "The last 25 years proved without a doubt that this is an effective method of promoting a band of five lads with pretty faces, but it also showed that it made them successful for two or three years at the most. Only Take That managed to buck that trend and obtain some kind of long-term success, probably because they had the luxury of mostly writing their own songs. You don't have that luxury yet. Besides, even Take That needed a lengthy break to get back together and start this new stage of their career."

 

"What about McFly then? They are still around, aren't they? It's been ten years," asked Niall.

 

"That's true. What McFly is doing at the moment is quite remarkable, but you must realize if you follow the charts that their level of commercial success is roughly a quarter, if that, of what it used to be when they were at their peak. They are smart enough to realize that it still makes for a comfortable living and keep on doing it, but once again, they are their own songwriters, so they have much more of a leeway in the way they strike deals with record companies... Anyway, enough about other bands!  Let's get back to the five of you. As I said, this is a completely private meeting. Everything you say to me here will not get out of that room if you don't want it to. That goes even for lies you might have told your management beforehand. You'll have that promise set in a contract of confidentiality we will all sign at the end of this meeting."

 

Liam looked surprised. "What are you on about? Everything we ever said in meetings has always been kept from the public. That's the only way the band could have made it so far."

 

"Of course, it goes without saying that all managerial decisions are kept from the public," said Mike. "But in this case, what we are going to talk about will also be kept at first from your families, Syco, Modest, and so on. I've been sent here with a specific motive, and the freedom to make it happen with you if you all agree to it. We'll have logistical help from Modest and your usual PRs if we ask for it but we can also go it alone if we want to. I managed to obtain that promise out of Syco and Modest. Any information that goes out of this room will have to be agreed between the five of you... See me as a counselor, if you will."

 

"Now, that's an interesting development. Does it mean we can rediscuss some specific points from our contracts then?" Harry said, already salivating at the idea of a change in his obligations.

 

"Don't get too excited, Harry. I've been warned about your ink addiction.  And it had been made absolutely clear to me that any tattoos that can't be hidden behind a tuxedo are still completely forbidden. There is no way you can get a great eagle drawn across your forehead, or have "Slap here if drunk ;p " written on your cheeks, at least as long as you're under contract with the band. Sorry."

 

Harry mock-sighed and smiled. "Pity. Those were great ideas."

 

"Debatable, mate," said Niall. "I think far too many people already find you slappable. No need to encourage them. Do I have to remind you that you are the reigning NME villain of the year!"

 

"No, you don't. It's still one of my proudest achievements," Harry said, mockingly puffing his chest. "I am pure evil incarnated, while you're just annoying little pixies, barely able to trip up old ladies. Mwahahaha!"

 

\------------------------------------------------

 

Mike had been warned that reunions between those guys could easily end up going round in circles, each of them trying to out-banter the other for as long as possible. Apparently, they were willing to put quite considerable effort as a team to make the boring bits of the meeting come up as late as possible.

That said, they would probably get restless if the meeting were to last too long, so Mike tried to take back control of the proceedings. "Yes Harry, you are extremely scary with your dimples of death and your curls of destruction. But let's focus for a bit now. First, you'll have to excuse me if sometimes my meaning comes across a bit muddled. I have no qualifications for what I was asked to do with you, and quite frankly  I'm winging it to quite an extent. I'm not even sure why I was chosen for the job. My best guess is that some of the things I tweeted or wrote online about you must have seemed interesting to your bosses. So they hired me so I could explain some of my ideas to you. It'd would explain why they contacted me via Livejournal."

"Anyway, that's quite enough about me. Let's start this meeting with a simple question to all of you. How do you think you came across recently, in interviews and such? Do you think you looked happy to be in the band, thankful to your fans for their support, and so on?"

 

Liam was the first to answer. "It's not always an easy task but I think we manage quite well actually. We almost always thank our fans after interviews and gigs. We stop for signing things or taking pictures. We try to be as available as possible to the fans during promo days. We do our best."

 

As Liam seemed truly worried he had somehow let fans down in recent weeks, Mike felt like he should put him at ease. "Don't worry. That's not why I am here. Your bosses seem quite content with you on that point. As far as public appearances go, behaviour on stage or interacting with fans, you do everything you're supposed to do. But, it has also been noticed that some of you don't look like they enjoy it any more. It has visibly become quite a burden for some of you and that lack of enthusiasm is beginning to get media coverage as well... If I may be a little blunt, Harry, you've been looking like you want out for weeks now. And Louis, in all fairness, you're not doing much better."

 

Harry and Louis both looked at Mike, not exactly shocked to hear that bit of criticism but still ready to protest against it and restate their commitment toward the band. Mike did not give them the time to do so. "Now, now, there is no need to get defensive. I'm not being sent here to chastise you. I won't threaten you with fines, force you to smile and shut up. On the contrary, I'm being sent here so we can address those feelings you might have and talk them out. But before we do that, I probably have to give you my views about what being in a boy band actually means.... I assume you are all pop fans at heart and are aware of the way most boy bands come and go quite quickly."

 

They all nodded.

 

"Still, a quck summary can't hurt. Listen to this three-step process I'm going to outline now and tell me afterward to what extent you feel like it applies to you."

"Step One : You're all clean-shaven, probably not old enough to drink. You smile a lot, you're goofy in interviews, not media-trained at all. You sing pretty songs about love written for you by pop producers. You have almost zero input in things. You're thankful for everything happening around you. You don't ask questions and aren't paid much. Broadsheet journalists usually don't acknowledge you during that stage. It's all teen mags and daytime kid's TV."

"Then there is Step Two : You're a success and you're getting more and more professional about what is becoming a job. You've designed a very speedy and illegible scribble to sign pictures. You've perfected a smile that does not always reach your eyes when you pose for pictures. You feel more business-orientated. You probably have accountants or lawyers who look after your interests when contracts are renewed. You start wanting to take part in the decision-making process. This is the stage where tabloids put you on the cover every other day while broadsheet journalists refer to you as 'pop puppets who captured the mood of the age' and employ big words like 'social phenomenum'".

"And then we get to Step Three : Success is huge. Arenas and stadium sell out in days. iTunes preorders go through the roof. All of you are now roughly of legal age. Hints of rebellion begin to appear in each of you. These are the times of the multiplying tattoos, the sudden changes of hairstyles, the public drinking. Steady partners start to pop up in the papers for some, while for others sleeping around get acknowledged by everyone but your youngest fans. Drugs can also come into the picture at this point."

 

At that point, Mike couldn't help noticing covert looks toward one of the band members so he felt obligated to add, with a fervour he was not able to completely suppress. "I am not in any way qualified to deal with drug problems and my order of mission here does not mention anything about it. But if drugs, hard drugs I mean, are a worry for one or some of you, talk it out with each other or with outside people, and please do something about it... I don't say this as an employee of your bosses, but as a fan. Don't go that road if you can help it!"

The atmosphere in the room got quite strange for a while, before Mike added, "I apologise. That was very unprofessional of me, but I know what drugs can do to you, and I always get a bit emotional when people I like might be struggling with them. I will talk no more about that subject. I just hope you'll keep it in mind."

 

The looks the five singers were sharing were not as reassuring as Mike would have hoped but it would have to do for now.

 

The new PR then came back to his primary mission. "Well, would you agree with my summary of a typical boy band's life? Does it fit with how you remember the past three years, and do you feel, like I do, that you are now, as a band, clearly at the third stage?"

 

"I think we do, yeah," said Harry. "And I said as much in the movie.. and that wasn't even cut off from the edit, like most things we said that were even remotely unenthusiastic about the band. So it must be a natural state of mind, if we are even allowed to express it."

 

Louis interrupted, "It's true we feel more and more often trapped inside our public images, not recognizing ourselves in the way people, and especially our fans, see us. We rant about it a lot among ourselves. Of course we are still hugely thankful for everything that happens to us. We would be stupid not to be. But to be honest I'm not sure it can go on for much longer. Something has got to give, and sooner rather than later I think. I'm pretty sure all of us would agree with that?"

Louis looked around for approval.

 

"Yes, I think it's fair to say we are all a bit tired of kid's TV now," continued Zayn, "of being asked what our favourite colour is or whether we wear boxers or briefs, or about what qualities we look for in a girl. I mean, not that I want to compare ourselves with him or anything, but when was the last time Bob Dylan got asked what he likes in a girl? It must have been ages, right?"

 

"I bet nobody ever asked him, the ugly bastard", ejaculated Niall, while most of his band mates sniggered. **

 

"Don't diss the Bob, man. It's bad luck. He's a genius," said Harry.

 

"Don't worry. There will be no Bob-dissing on my watch," Mike said. "So you all agree that Stage Three is indeed where you are at at the moment? Good!"

"Now let's look at the future. From here one can foresee a few possible outcomes."

"The most common one is this. Let's call it the Backstreet-Boys-fading-away. Band members get tired of being seen as pop puppets. They start refusing the term boy band and decide to call themselves a _quote_ male vocal group _endquote_ , then churn up albums full of increasingly bland power ballads that sell less and less as time goes by. They generally end up being seen as has-beens by the general public, although they may get the odd job as judges in a reality TV show and usually keep a handful of committed fans, usually women who got older listening to their songs and now stick with them mostly for nostalgia's sake."

"Interestingly, some bands are marketed as male vocal groups from the start and are sometimes able to remain relevant for a bit longer. Look at Westlife for instance, or Boyz II Men. But those bands usually have been targeted from the start to an older audience. That's clearly not your case. You started too blatantly as a teen pop band to be able to go that route. In any case, I don't think you're the kind of band who can pull off an earnest, synchronated standing-from-a-stool without falling down laughing."

 

"Well, aren't you a pretty ray of sunshine? Were you really sent here to bring us down by telling us our days are numbered?", said Liam.

 

Not deterred by the long faces facing him, Mike continued his somewhat bleak exposé about the shelf life of modern boybands.

"Another frequent outcome is that the most popular member of the band break out and start a solo career, effectively ending the band. See *Nsync or Busted for instance, or even Take That. They took a while to get over Robbie's leaving."

After a tiny pause, Mike added with a smile, "You'll all notice I hope how I am pointedly not looking at Niall right now."

 

All eyes that had automatically turned toward Harry suddenly went to Niall in surprise, except Niall's own, which just got comically bigger in his suddenly crimson face.

 

"But.. but... Me! Are you mad? I have no intention of going solo! What would I do all by meself on a stage? Juggling? Interpretative dancing? Don't be daft!"

 

Niall's four bandmates then looked at him with such incredible fondness that Mike was reminded of a description of Niall he heard on TV, "the one with the face like a pie". That was exactly it. Zayn, Liam, Harry and Louis were looking at him with the same easy affection they might feel for the apple pie their grandmothers used to bake at the weekend, like something they could never stop liking even if they wanted to.

 

Mike thought it was a beautiful moment. As tense as some commentators thought the atmosphere between the five men were, there was still obviously a lot of friendship there.

 

Harry smiled and addressed Mike directly, "I see what you've done here, and I can assure you we all appreciate it. But don't worry. No one, not even the headline-grabbing star-shagging pop heartthrob some tabloids see me as,  wants to go solo right now. Besides, the contracts we signed a few weeks ago were quite clear about that. We would work at Asda and only eat pasta and ketchup for the rest of our lives if we were to leave the band before our contract is up."

 

Mike had not been able to see the actual contracts signed between the five singers and their management, but that sounded pretty dire. Maybe that's why he tried to inject some optimism into his next words.

"Well, as I mentioned before, more positive outcomes are possible for bands that write their own songs, usually because they have the upper hand when negotiating with their record companies, which means they can mostly decide their future for themselves. Some bands even manage to completely erase from memory where they come from. The first Beatles album for instance was for all intents and purposes a boy band album. It was all simple melodies about puppy love and holding hands. They only became recognized pop legends later,  when their music got more adventurous and imaginative."

 

Louis shook his head. "Thanks for trying mate, but I really don't think we are the next Beatles."

 

"Quite frankly," answered Mike, "I don't think you are either. But as Niall said, a band like McFly can happily go on its merry way as B-listers, and be perfectly happy about it. In all honesty, that's not the gloomiest way you could imagine for a boyband to grow older. And I think you are friendly with them, aren't you?"

 

"Yes, we are," said Niall.

 

"See. It's not all doom and gloom then.", said Mike with a smile.

"So, we established what your current situation is and, looking at bands from the past, made a list of the choices you have,' said Mike. "Your third album is already done and your stadium tour starts in a few weeks. Most of that is already a done deal and we couldn't change much about them if we wanted to. But, come September 2014, everything is once again possible, inside the framework of your contracts of course. So now is the time to brainstorm, to decide whether one of those outcomes I just enumerate suit you or whether you want to try and trailblaze a brand new path for yourselves."

 

The five 1D members were looking at Mike in askance, not quite sure of what kind of answers were expected of them at this point.

 

Mike narrowed down his questioning. "Let's start with a specific question, how do you see yourself in five years' time? Do you think you will still be together as a band?"

 

Louis was the first to answer. "I really don't know, but if we are, it would probably not be in the same way. Our contract would have been up for renegotiation at least once. Some of us might have had kids or got married. So we probably would no longer agree to six-month-long tours or weeks of non-stop promo around the world.  And if we can be a bit smug about it, we won't have to. I mean, we've been treated quite fairly by management so far, and all of us are already settled for life, money-wise. Except if we develop an Elton-John-size coke habit, we will never have money trouble again. It's a nice cushion to fall back on and it will give us some freedom when time will come to decide."

 

"Exactly," added Zayn, looking at Mike. "You seem disappointed that we haven't yet discussed all this but that's because there is no hurry. We can afford to wait until the end of our current contract and see how we'll feel by then."

 

They all nodded, except Liam, who seemed a bit more reluctant to agree. "Well, it never hurts to be prepared, is it? Quite frankly, it makes me feel bad that you all feel like in three years, this might be it and we would never need to see each other again."

 

I got to see then why they were labelled such a tactile bunch of guys. They all ooh-ed and ah-ed at each other for a good thirty seconds while Liam got one-armed hugs from all sides.

 

"Of course, we'll see each other again. You promised me I'd be the godfather of your first born."

 

"No, it was me. You grubby bastard. You already bagged Zayn's second-born."

 

And so on, for at least two minutes.

 

It was going to be a long meeting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ** Author's note : look it up in a dictionary if you believe I suddenly lost my mind. It's a legitimate word.


	2. The First Two Rules

Once their respective rights to become a godfather had been put back in order, Mike resumed.

"Well, I suppose the first point we have to decide then is how long you want this band to keep going. To give you an idea of where you stand, Modest and Syco gave me yesterday a very clear answer, an almost clinical one. They want the band to continue until the end of your current contract, then are willing to automatically renew it as long as they can expect to more than treble their investment. Beyond that, they didn't say much, just a few words about the possibility for you to buy back your name and the part of your back catalogue they own. I took this as a tentative opening for you to go it alone when you're no longer profitable enough for them. For what I know of past bands, this is actually quite an unusual offer, one you should probably consider when the time comes. All this means there is a real possibility that One Direction could exist as a band for quite a long time, under one form or another."

"So I suppose we come back to that same question : are you happy to take your earnings and leg it when your current contract ends, and maybe branch out in TV presenting, PR-ing or things like that? This wouldn't probably be a dangerous gamble. Jobs like those would almost certainly be offered to you on a silver platter."

"But still, there is another option, the one I personally would like to see you try : make One Direction beat the odds and still exist as a band when you're in your thirties. If I'm here with you today, it's probably because I wrote online an essay about how you were one of the rare bands that could do it."

 

Zayn's face, then Harry's, turned to Liam, who in turn looked at Niall and Louis. Soon, they were trying all trying to decipher the others' expression, unsure of how to react. Long-term planning was apparently not something they were used to when meeting with management. So Mike tried to reassure them.

"This is not a question that needs to be resolved today and, to be frank, I'm not sure I should be present when you discuss it. But seeing as I am here now, we'll just assume for now that you want the band to continue and discuss ways to work toward that goal. If you decide to call it quits at the end of this contract, it will only have been a bit of idle talking. Is that OK with you?"

 

"Yeah. Sure. I can't see why not. It never hurts to be prepared," said Niall. "Although I must confess I've already entertained the possibility of entering at 25 into a life of luxury and idleness in Mullingar, and the thought quite appealed to me. Each day of the year, my feet on the railing of my terrace, a pint on the table besides me, with maybe a nice CD playing in the background, and a book at hand, watching the sun set on the hills, while my kids run around on the first floor... All that sounds pretty great if I'm being honest. Well, I suppose I might get restless and miss the adrenaline-kick that performing gives me.... Then there's the fact I wouldn't see your ugly mugs any more. But that can be arranged. Maybe you could all move with me in Mullingar.... Why wouldn't you? We have the best shepherd's pies in the world. And the beer ain't half bad either."

 

"Niall, you know we all think Mullingar is great, but I really don't see myself settling down at 25," replied Louis. "I would get stir crazy in a week. If it depended only on me, we'd do this thing forever. I want Up All Night to become a classic song. I want the Parkinson-shaking grannies who still come to our shows in 2060 to clench tightly to their walking frame in order not to faint when the first notes of Little Things fill the arena. I don't want to think about stopping yet. I am sure we would all look dashing in our tweed waistcoats. I'd wear my suspenders, a monocle, winking each night at a lavender-haired lady in the first row, pointing her out with my cane to security so she could be stairlifted to my room after the show for a bit of naughty Scrabble."

 

Zayn made a disgusted face. "This is quite a detailed scene you've painted here mate. You must have given it some serious thought.... And by the way, shouldn't you include in that pcture the woman who, by then, will probably be your faithful wrinkled wife of 50 years?"

 

"Of course. Eleanor will quite obviously be that lavender-haired lady I'm pointing at with my cane. Who do you take me for?" said Louis, looking rather delighted at the idea.

 

Mike smiled. "Well, I think there is a middle ground to be found somewhere between Niall's readiness to take roots early in his hometown and Louis' desire to make grannies pacemakers explode from lust and disappointment in 50 years' time", said Mike. "We could aim for that middle ground, for instance put ourselves a target of reaching album number 8, when you'll be in your late 20s. Does that seem reasonable to you?"

 

"That would probably make 6 studio albums, a best-of and a live album. That sounds quite sensible to me," summarized Liam.

 

Mike then took out the notes he had prepared. "Perfect, that's exactly what I was brought here to discuss. First, there is an important point I need to make, one you're probably already familiar with through your interaction with the general public and the press."

"Of course, you have your numerous fans, mostly female or gay, mostly your age or younger, mostly pop aficionados. But on the other side, you have some sworn enemies: the indie boys, the rock fans, the metalheads, all those weirdoes who insist that entertainement should have authenticity and credibility. You also have the wannabe singers or actors who didn't quite make it and will never forgive you for succeeding, the boys who have trouble finding girlfriends,... Added together, all these categories end up being a sizeable portion of the world population."

"So roughly speaking, what I mean is that the world you exist in as a band, your possible market if you will, is divided into three groups. One third already likes you, one third already hates everything you represent and one third couldn't care less about what you do."

"In my mind, this means the basic idea of sustained success is this : don't ever piss off the third that already likes you in order to try appealing to the other two. That never works. You'll lose far more old fans than gain new ones and their total number will dwindle. When *NSYNC went on record to say they were mostly ashamed of their first two albums, it was basically the end of them as pop megastars."

At first, Mike had feared that all this would have sounded obvious to the guys' ears, like over-rehashed banalities, but it seemed not to be the case. They were listening quite attentively. It gave him a bit more confidence to continue.

"I don't recall reading anything yet in the papers about it but it's perfectly possible you might actually think right now that your first songs were rubbish, and maybe be tempted to say it during interviews, in order to prove to the world that, yes, you're growing up, you're not the pop puppets you once were but are turning into real credible artists, with a vision of what their craft should be..... Yadda yadda yadda."

"My advice to you is NEVER DO IT. Those songs had a purpose, both for you and for your fans. And even fans who are now grown up and might have started listening to classical music, acid-jazz, polka punk or what have you, will always have a soft spot for them, as shallowly poppy as they might sound to their adult ears. If you feel like you've outgrown your old songs, what you have to do is quite simple: write better ones for your next album or get them written for you, songs that represent more accurately the way you feel and the music you like at that particular point. You may even try if you're feeling brave to branch out into other music genres... but don't overdo it. I think your core genre will always have to be mid-tempo pop."

"That for me is Rule One, and it is a very important one : never look or sound ashamed of what you did in the past. Your past body of work is part of you and made you who you are today. Making light of it is OK, even laughing at it in jest is OK as long as you make it perfectly clear you're doing it as an in-joke with your fans, and not as a slap in the face, a slur against their shitty taste in music."

"Making fun of your X Factor appearances is obviously OK too. It has long become part of your current image, especially for you, Louis, although I never quite understood why you thought your first audition was so cringe-worthy. The short snippet we got shown is bad, but not excruciatingly so."

 

"It was for me," Louis replied. "But I have the disadvantage of remembering the whole thing, not just the snippet that is used in the movie. I was horribly off-key for most of it and looked like a complete dork. I've only been selected because I had the right hairdo. I know it, you know it, we all know it and Simon even told me as much after we were signed."

 

It was probably telling that none of the other four guys made a move to reassure him.  Besides, they might possibly all be thinking along the same lines, remembering their hairdo at the time and how it had helped them to become who they were now. You can't watch the X-Factor for long and still think that on average the voices are more important than the looks.

 

"Thanks Louis," resumed Mike. "I couldn't have dreamt of a better transition toward my second rule for sustained success, which is for me just as important as the first."

"You might want to believe your success come from being a bunch of nice lads who sing OK, dance comically badly, make the occasional cute comment and basically have fun, but, as you are probably aware, that is not the whole truth. Your success stems even more from the fact that you're selling lust and sexual desires to the fans. True, it's mostly platonic sex, because it will be unattainable sex for 99.99% of them, but it IS sex. For your youngest fans, you'll represent the perfect boyfriend to go and see a Pixar movie with in the theatre, playing footsie and holding hands, while the older ones'll want you to do unspeakable X-rated things to their bodies."

"So Rule Two is basically this : never forget that your core business is basically selling unattainable sex to teenage girls and the occasional gay guy. And that's something we now need to talk about in more depth. For that, we need to go through a very boring part of this meeting, as quick as possible. I'm afraid I'm going to need to get a quick confirmation from each of you of what your current public romantic profile is."

 

"So basically you've been lying to us from the beginning," said Niall with a frown. "You said it was going to be a new kind of meeting, full of new ideas.... and half an hour in, we are already back into Sugarscape territory. I'm going to need a few minutes if I have to find a new amusing answer about what I look for in a girl."

 

"There will be no need to flaunt your legendary wit at us Niall. This boring part of the meeting will be over before you realise it.  So Zayn, you're first : you're straight, in a long-term relationship with Perrie Edwards from Little Mix, and engaged to be married in a distant future. Is that about right?"

 

"Yes. That's correct."

 

Mike looked at his notepad, pausing for a few moments, looking a bit apprehensive. "I'm sorry for asking this follow-up question but some persistent rumours are floating about and have never been convincingly denied. Those rumours state that you might have been unfaithful to her at least once or twice in the previous months. Is there truth in that?"

 

Zayn blushed. "Yes....it happened. I was complacent about security and pictures came out.... I'm a bit ashamed of the whole thing to be honest. But me and Perrie talked about it at length the last time we saw each other and I think we are all right. We've established rules as to what can and cannot be done in the current circumstances, what with us not seeing each other as often as we would like."

 

Mike jotted down that new piece of information on his note pad. "So the two of you struck a deal so to speak. In your opinion, is Perrie really OK with what I assume is now something like a semi-open relationship with full-disclosure requirement?"

 

"She seems to be, yes. She obviously has the same freedom I have if she wants to use it.  I truly hate the thought of her with anyone else, but it was only fair."

 

"Yes it was... But If you will accept advice from a total stranger, don't forget that as long as she doesn't use that freedom, you're still the bad guy in the relationship. You might want to talk about it with her if you haven't done it yet, especially now you've announced your engagement. Actually semi-officially renouncing your right to stray would be a very nice engagement gift. And one that could be nicely spun for the press, which is always a bonus."

 

"Yeah. I know. But I don't think there is need for it any more. I haven't cheated on her for weeks now and she knows it. I really think we are OK as a couple. We wouldn't have talked about wedding if we were not. But I'll bear in mind the possibility of making some kind of public confession, although I'm pretty sure our usual PRs will veto the idea."

 

Mike shrugged. "Maybe, or maybe not. In my opinion, it can't hurt to submit the idea to them and see what they think.... In any case, we don't need to talk about it in any more details. It's not part of my direct assignment for today, although it may become part of it at a later point if we work well together."

 

Zayn nodded. Mike turned a page on his notepad.

 

"So, our next stop is Harry. The word of the street on you, Harry, is that you are straight, cocky, a bit of a man-whore and looking mostly for conquests in the world of show-biz, as some sort of proof that you are now part of an exclusive circle of mega-celebrities. Would you agree with that depiction?"

 

"Well, I don't think my reasoning is that shallow but, yes, I guess it might be said I tend to pull in showbiz parties, so to speak. But it's not a way for me to boost my confidence. That would just be ridiculous, and quite pathetic. It's just that I'm now able to be picky and don't see why I shouldn't be. God knows I love Holmes Chapel, but it's difficult not to realise that the proportion of fit women is much higher in celebrity parties in LA than it was in the village where I grew up or, indeed, in any place that is not a private club whose entrance is guarded by big guys with earphones and surrounded by paps.

 

"Well, sure, but as true as that probably is, statistically speaking, you must realise how smug it sounds and how such a comment would cause an uproar if released to the public. I need to raise my PC flag here."

 

"Well, yes, of course I would never use those terms publicly. Contrary to what some people think, I'm not a total moron."

 

"I'm sure you're not, tweeting Confucius and all. But still, if these are thoughts you actively entertain, we'll have to make sure to work on it. You can't be allowed to slip in interviews. Although I agree it is quite a reasonable thing to say from a logical point of view, it would be very difficult to spin and very damaging. That kind of comment is exactly what I meant earlier about slapping your fans in the face."

 

Mike then stopped for a few seconds, trying to think of a workable strategy. "This is the kind of thing we could work out for the future: a tweet about your dating history being what it is but still being in search of your one true love, and your being open to it being found in unexpected places. That would probably sound great... By the way, you are currently officially single, is that correct? No Kardashians to mention?"

 

"No. Not yet. For the last few months, it has only been occasional one-night-stand with girls I met at parties."

 

"How occasional? What numbers are we talking about here? Are you still infamously Mr 'Definitely-less-than-one-hundred'?"

 

Niall cackled while Harry blushed. "I don't keep count, but, yeah, I think so. Even if only just... possibly."

 

Mike then turned his eyes toward Harry's laughing, unsympathetic bandmate. "So, Niall then, you're the mysterious Irishman who see any gathering of fans as a 'shower of cunts'. You try most of the time to keep yourself to yourself but you also seem quite prone to laughing at others.... which isn't very nice, altough I suppose you have the excuse of being the designated cheerful one in this band. That said, I know next to nothing about your romantic life, only two names I found on some tabloid website. So what is there to know?"

 

"Since the band started, I had a few girlfriends, most of them under the radar, thank God. You probably don't know much about it because very few people actually care about who I date."

 

Mike rolled his eyes. "No false modesty is needed here, pal. I did some research on the Internet and I can assure you that quite a lot of fans care very much about who you might be dating but still have difficulties finding answers. So what about Ellie Goulding and that Zoe model?"

 

"Only friend with the first, and... let's just say that things happened with Zoe a few times, but that I feel no commitment to her at the moment."

 

"Judging by what I've been told on how those things work, am I correct in saying that this answer basically means you drew the short straw when it had to be decided which one of you had to be made to look romantically available in public appearances?"

 

"It's even better than that," interjected Liam. "Niall volunteered to be the single one with Harry. Said he wasn't in a hurry to go steady. He's the hero of the three of us who are in committed relationships."

 

"Yes, I am a hero and don't you forget it next time I need to borrow some shampoo, you tight bastard."

 

Believing it was not his role to intervene in matters of toiletries borrowing, Mike turned another page of his notepad and continued his inquiries. "So, Liam, you're straight as well, were in a long-term relationship with a Danielle Peazer a few months ago but you broke up, and now you have a new long-term girlfriend called Sophia. Is that correct?"

 

"Yes. And before you ask, no, she's not pregnant. Not that we know, anyway."

 

"That's obviously good news for the next tour. Actually, you seem to be the one with the easiest story to sell. It almost reads like a fairytale : difficult childhood with some bullying issues, a loving, hard-working family, then you become at the end some kind of prince charming, with sensible tattoos and a good sense of commitment. You're perfect boyfriend or son-in-law material."

 

"Yep. That's our Liam. Good old reliable, sensible Daddy-Direction. Don't know what we'd do without him," said Zayn, who gave him a one-armed hug and a light kiss on the temple.

 

 

 

So far, things had been pleasant enough, the information flowing fluently both ways between Mike and the guys. They seemed to be quite blasé about having to answer invasive questions about their private lives, which was a bit disturbing in itself but Mike wasn't about to complain. It made his job easier. Would it continue though? From the moment he had used the word straight in his first question to Zayn, Louis had seemed to get more and more agitated.

 

"And finally we come to you, Louis. You are currently in a relationship of three years with university-student Eleanor Calder, is that correct?"

 

"Yes, and there's no need to sound so surprised.... In fact, to save you some time I'm also going to answer your next two questions. No, she's not a beard and no, I am not gay!"

 

Mike had anticipated a little defensiveness, but not that much anger behind it. It startled him. "Uh... Blimey! That's quite a heated response for a question I didn't even ask! It seems quite obvious the gay rumours which have been following you for a while are hitting a nerve then. I heard that even your grandpa tweeted about it recently. Can I assume that protectiveness comes from a long way and that maybe those gay rumours began at school, even before you appeared on the X-Factor?"

 

"Yes, unfortunately. And I hated them just as much then. I have never been even remotely attracted to a guy. I may have a high voice and come across a little camp sometimes, to the point that Lottie once told me I sounded like Alan Carr, the little shit. But there is not much I can do about that. It's my voice, it's what I sound like, those are my gestures. But it does not mean I like to take it up the arse. There are a lot of straight camp men around."

 

Mike nodded. "Yes there is. And you are indeed one of them. Nothing wrong with that. But we'll need to work on how to get that message across better. Camp and homophobic don't mix well together, and you often come across as quite homophobic when you react to those rumours, on Twitter and elsewhere. That's not good for the band, at least in Europe and the US, where homophobia is less and less tolerated, and where you have loads of gay fans. So I'd advise you to let those rumours lie for the moment. Don't tweet about them. Don't acknowledge them at all. Just keep being seen with Eleanor, and in love. I assure you it gets the point across very well."

 

After a short hesitation, Mike continued. "If I can be a little candid here, I am gay."

 

"No shit Sherlock," added Zayn with a smile. "A guy who blogged about us, knows all our names and our dating history, and he is gay. Who knew?"

 

"Well, yes, exactly," said Mike. "Remember what I told you before. You're in the business of selling sexual attractiveness to the masses. 99% of your fans are attracted to you. And if I had to choose, God knows why, which one of you I'm most attracted to, it would probably be you, Louis. But nevertheless, when I see you and Eleanor together, I feel quite content, maybe even happy for you. So, for now, it works. Keep on doing it."

 

"Thanks. That's really nice to hear actually," Louis said

 

Mike smirked. "It was meant to sound nice. It's part of my well-perfected technique for turning closet-cases gay. I'm delighted to see it's working already."

 

When Louis's face hardened, Mike was quick to add. "Jesus! That was a joke! We'll really need to work on your touchiness if we are to implement Rule Three.... But before we talk about it, may I suggest we take a break? I'm dying for a fag. A smoking hot one. Who wants to come out with me for a sneaky one? Louis maybe?"

 

They all smiled then, even Louis, albeit reluctantly. Maybe there was still hope.


	3. The Three Kinds Of Fan And Rule Three

The Los Angeles Headquarters of Sony Music were a tall, grey, circular tower made of concrete and glass, totally devoid of character. While Mike was standing in its shadow, cigarette in hand, it appeared to him that it was somehow quite a good metaphor (or was that a simile?, he was always confusing the two) of how the band must be seen by their record company : fulfilling a function, obviously very well, but designed then used without any emotional investment.

Mike doubted there were a single leaking toilet or recalcitrant heater in the whole tower. All elevators were probably running smoothly and their Internet connection was most certainly incredibly fast. In the same way, record stores all over the world were receiving all new 1D releases in time, with the necessary promo material, the songs were written by renowned teams of music producers. Their music videos were always slick, either cute or funny, and uploaded on Youtube at precisely the right time to maximise their impact.

But, on the other hand, the building felt impersonal. Little thought, if any, had been given about architectural originality here. In the same way, once the five members of One Direction had been cast and put together as a band, most of the decisions taken regarding their career stemmed from the need to maintain their image or make it evolve as slowly as possible in order to guarantee profit for a few more years. They had become a business and as a consequence had to be managed with a business-oriented state of mind. Sure, that was cynical, but then again, show-business had always been under its glittering façade, a cynical way of making money.

Dwarfed by the tower and the financial and media power it embodied, Mike thought it was quite unlikely he would succeed in breaking that mould. All he could hope to achieve was making those years more fun for the guys and for their fans. At that moment, Mike truly felt like he was the only person in the whole building who was wholly on the side of the five members of One Direction, who considered them as thinking and feeling indivduals and he had naively hoped they would have recognised that somehow. So the fact that none of them had agreed to share his cigarette break was a bit of a let-down. He had been sure that Zayn at least would have jumped at the opportunity to get his nicotine fix in the open air. Sadly not. But that didn't have to mean they could not work well together in the future... Small steps and all that.

Flicking his cigarette butt in the sand ashtray outside the main entrance, Mike went back into the building and made his way to the conference room. While walking the long corridor leading to it, he saw through the windows the five guys idly chatting among themselves, feet on the table and chairs precariously balanced on two legs, or even one in Zayn's case. Judging by their relaxed state, they were not talking of anything remotely important.

This could be either good or bad news. Either it meant they were wholly on board with him and waiting in confidence for the rest of the meeting, or it meant they had taken nothing he'd said until then seriously and thought he was just another failed PR guy they would never see again after today.

It was time to find out.

 

"Hello again, guys," said Mike taking back his seat. "Do you still need a minute to wind down or are we good to start again?"

 

"No, we're good. Fire away," said Zayn. "Actually, we are now quite curious to know what your Rule Three will be."

 

"Well, you won't have long to wait for it. First, allow me summarise one last time what your current image is, without sugar-coating it or making it needlessly gloomy. You are five 20-something lads, put together by a pop svengali during a UK reality-TV show. You're all reasonably handsome, well-behaved and nice, even those of you who are meant to fit into the bad-boy stereotype every boy band seems to cultivate. You sing mostly pop-rock songs about being in love. You have millions of fans. You're touring the world almost non-stop to do promotional appearances and concerts. You rarely stay more than a week in the same place. You either have a girlfriend or are looking for one, although not necessarily a steady one."

"You're on board with me so far? Perfect. This is what I'll call from now on the "media truth", the one authorised interviews, books and TV appearances try to sell to the fans. And I don't use the word sell in a bad way. This is a perfectly nice truth to tell the fans. Most of it is probably even true, as far as the reality of the facts are concerned, and if part of it isn't, it doesn't really matter in the end, as long as it is kept out of the media."

"But what you have to realise is that for most of your fans, it's also a somewhat disappointing truth. Even if they'll never consciously think it, they can't ignore the fact that their emotional involvement in you will never be reciprocated on an equal footing. Except in the case of a quite unlikely love-at-first-sight fairytale, you'll never love a single one of your fans with the same intensity they love you. Most of them will never even meet you in the flesh, except maybe as a small dot moving around on a stadium stage or behind a barrier for a quick signature or a picture. You'll never be able to learn how each of those fans drink their tea, what their favorite colour or their favourite movie is. You will never fall in love with them. You will never ring at their parents' doors to invite them out for a drink or a movie. In short, one might say you sell them sex-appeal, lust and personal affection but you're almost certain never to deliver."

 

"That's a very cynical and disturbing way to look at our job. It makes me feel cheap," said Niall, frowning, while Liam nodded in acquiescence.

 

"I'm not saying you're hypocrits," answered Mike. "I'm sure you're sincere when you say you love your fans and I am convinced you do love them as much as it is possible for you to do, considering there are five of you and maybe 20 millions of them. You love them as a whole, as a huge group of people who, by buying CDs and concert tickets, allow you to be who you are. To paraphrase that awful line from an old Backstreet Boys song, you may "wish you could thank them in a different way, come on" (and I don't know about you, but I always found that "come on" phrase at the end very disturbing)... You may wish to, but you can't. It's just not possible. There are too many of them and too few of you. So, on a fundamental basis, the relationship you have with your fans is built on a greatly unequal balance of power."

"So what do you think fans do? Many of them refuse to acknowledge what I've just said. They hold on to the media truth, hoping it will eventually reveal itself to be not as disappointing as I've just made it up to be. Those are the fans who are convinced you'll fall in love with them if they get the chance to meet you properly. Those are the fans who would murder hundreds of kittens for a follow or a retweet, who might faint or cry hysterically when they finally meet you, the ones who hope they will beat those quite long odds of 20-millions-to-one and somehow meet you one day and become your wife. Those are the fans for which you are taught to make eye contact as much as possible during gigs. Trying to keep those fans happy is essentially Marketing-A-Boyband-101, and there is nothing wrong with that. It works."

 

Niall was now looking quite uncomfortable, and, judging by the turn of his lips, even Harry seemed a bit uneasy at seeing his job described in that way.

 

"I'm sorry if what I say here is upsetting you. In truth, I don't think I'm telling you anything you don't already know on some level but it's true I might be putting it a little more bluntly than what you're used to. For that I can only apologize. I like to say things as I see them, for better and for worse."

"I'm glad to say you will probably like better how I describe the second kind of fans. In my eyes, they are the most reasonable and the ones I'd most like to interact with if I were you. They are the ones who accept the media truth for what it is and are happy to go with it. They are maybe a bit older, more down-to-earth, or sadly they may have problems of self-esteem that prevent them from believing they could ever seduce you. Whatever the reason, those fans are happy to just enjoy the music, sing along, dance before their seats with their friends during concerts and put the occasional poster on their bedroom walls. These are the _quote_ normal fans _endquote,_ the ones Channel 4 does not make a documentary about, the ones who are most frequently shown on camera, dancing, laughing and smiling in the arena, during your live performances. The good news is that you don't have to do much to please them: just be who you are, sing, try to dance and look happy. The bad news is that their involvement being less intense than for the first kind of fans, they might be more fickle. If they don't like your new single, they might be seduced away by the new batch of X-Factor bands or, heaven forbid, by the Bieb, and forget about you completely."

 

Mike looked around. No one seemed willing to make a comment, not even a jokey one about the Bieb, which was disappointing.

 

"I don't have accurate numbers to give you about how numerous those two types of fans are. I wish I had but a sociological study of a boy band's fan base has yet to be made scientifically... But if I had to hazard a guess, I would say that the first kind I described represent roughly 25% of your fan base and the second one 50%."

"So, let's do a bit of maths. 25% plus 50% equals 75%. So there is roughly 25% of fans still unaccounted for. Those 25% are what I call the third kind of fans, those who, while they accept the media truth for what it is, remix it by adding some other truths of their own in order to enrich their vision of who you are, make it more appealing or more interesting. You'll notice I call these extra ingredients 'truths', and not 'theories' or 'rumours' in order to insist on how deeply they are ingrained in their minds, how much those fans end up investing themselves emotionally in them."

 

At this point, Liam sent an amused look to Zayn, who sighed.

 

"So you must wonder what I mean by additional truths," continued Mike. "Mostly I mean intraband romances, those weirdoes Louis always rants about on Twitter, those who are convinced he is madly in love with Harry or that you, Liam and Zayn, have been together as a couple from the start."

 

"Eh, Zayn ! You owe me ten pounds. I told you he was going to go there," shouted Liam, triumphantly.

 

Mike smiled. "Well done, Liam. I would gladly high-five you but you're too far away. Besides, you don't have much to gloat about. It wasn't that difficult to guess now, was it?"

 

"No, it really wasn't. We know your kind, and all the hints were there," answered Liam, grinning.

 

But Louis was not grinning. On the contrary, he looked prostrate, as if a burden he thought he had managed to drop months ago had suddenly reappeared on his shoulders.

 

Mike tried to reassure him, "Louis, there really is no need to look so dejected just yet. Remember my earlier promise. Nothing we discuss in this room will ever go out if you don't want it to. I will never ask you to play a role you're not comfortable with."

"If it makes you feel better, this dreaded Ziam, Larry malarkey is by no means the only kind of additional truths out there. There are loads of them. Some fans basically see you as celibate monks, wholly devoted to God (don't ask me why, I have no idea). Some of them even believe you are actual angels sent on Earth to redeem humanity... If you look deeply enough into the murky depths of the Internet, you'll find pages dedicated to all sorts of out-there theories about you."

 

"I'll have to search for those angel theories. I'd look good with wings I think. They would match my hair quite well, " said Niall. He was looking so serious saying it that the five other people in the room looked at him for a few seconds with disbelief, and a weird mix of fear, love, amusement and respect.

 

Mike resumed. "Do those fans truly believe in their theories, as being actual facts? It's hard to say. I suspect some of them do, but most of them are just telling themselves stories, using the five of you as characters, or as sexy actors they can direct in little plays they create for their own enjoyment. So, yes, a big part of those fans do live in a fantasy world. So what should they concern you in any way, might you wonder?"

"Well, because they still like to set their fantasy world in some sort of reality, as much as they can, and that even if they don't truly believe you're banging each other silly any chance you get or that you hide beautiful angel wings under your shirts. They want your characters to be playing their parts as convincingly as possible. You probably heard of those Tumblr pages where you can find animated gifs of most of the looks all of you have ever exchanged on camera. And each of those gifs has been carefully analysed, squealed on and used as evidence to support one theory or another. After a while, it becomes almost a game for the fans, an obsessive but mostly harmless game : they look for the tiniest hints in your interviews or videos then draw definitive conclusions supporting their claim. Things like, 'Louis had a ship tattoo and now Harry has got a compass tattoo... Matching tattoos, how cute', or 'When Zayn and Liam shared a room during the Japanese part of the tour, they wore the same pair of socks on successive days. They must share the same bed.'"

 

Harry smiled, while rubbing his left arm.

 

"I see in your eyes that you know exactly what I'm talking about here", said Mike, "and that some of you have quite negative feelings about it. I can't stress enough how much of this way to be a fan, so to speak, comes from a deep sense of love for who you are. These fans want you to be as happy as you can be, not to endure the strain of long-distance relationships, not to miss your loved ones during lengthy tours, so they engineer a scenario in which you can conveniently fall in love, have loads of sex while touring the world. The fact that this relationship between you has to be kept a secret from the nasty, homophobic press or from your money-crazy managers makes it even more precious in their eyes. As a plot device, it really has endless possibilities, and they enjoy exploring them all. The fact that the five of you are quite easy on the eyes doesn't hurt of course."

"As you can probably tell now, I have much love for that third kind of fan. And you may wonder right now why I'm here and what I believe should be done about them?"

 

"Nothing. They should just get a life and leave us be," replied Louis, who seemed deeply annoyed by the way the conversation was going.

 

"Well, no. That's just it. That is my Rule Three, and we need to talk about it. In my opinion, you should let them play among themselves, and even tease them whenever possible, leave hints, make in-jokes, and wink-wink-nudge-nudge them as much as possible. In a way, you should see them as a niche market that can easily be catered to without disturbing your main market."

"I have plenty of advice to give on how to achieve that, but first we'll have to see if that's something you can all get on board with.... Louis, if you don't mind. I'll let the others talk first. We'll listen to you last."


	4. Louis Doen't Feel Comfortable With Rule Three. Niall Does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay. Real life got in the way. Because of that, there are some discrepancies in the time line. 1D-Day and the NRJ Music Awards are supposed to have happened already. I hope it's not too much of a problem.
> 
> Only one chapter left.

Mike looked first at Zayn and Liam, at his left. "There is hardly any point in my asking you Zayn or you Liam what you think of that idea. After having seen your kinky whipping sequence during 1D-Day, or watching Zayn's blatant "I love you Liam" from the NRJ awards on a loop in a tumblr gif, it seems obvious you're perfectly willing to play the bromance card, and even probably the slash card. The only thing missing to get the whole package is a leaked sex tape between the two of you."

 

Zayn and Liam looked at each other with a smirk, apparently already planning how they could make it happen while still maintaining plausible deniability.

 

Mike quickly added, "This was NOT a serious suggestion by the way!! But the two of you are so blatant with your flirting that I can only assume that it has been OK'd by management?"

 

Liam answered, "Well, yes. They said that as we were the two least likely to be seen as gay, we should feel free to please that part of our audience as much as we want."

 

"Well, that's quite an open-minded move from management there. Although it's nothing new, *NSYNC and McFly were doing it ten years ago, it's still quite ballsy, and it's consistent with my being sent here. So well done Modest for that! Can I assume the two of you are willing to keep on doing it?"

 

"Well, sure. It's great fun, and our girlfriends find the whole thing hysterical," said Zayn.

 

"Perfect. Niall, what's your view on this?" asked Mike.

 

"Well, to be honest. I never felt like I needed to be involved in it. Researchers told me that those fans on average didn't care much about me, that Zayn/Liam and Harry/Louis were so overwhelmingly dominant that I had no place in their fantasies. I'm told that in the stories written about them I'm always the goofy one who likes to eat, the good, supportive friend who says 'At last' when the two main characters finally start to kiss or shag, but stays single all along or has a girlfriend the writers don't even bother to find a name for."

 

Mike couldn't help smiling at that frighteningly accurate description of your typical 1D fic. "Well, it seems that whoever did that research was thorough. I'd love to meet them one day. We'd have much to talk about... and how does that make you feel not to be a main character, to always be the one third-wheeling, or even fifth-wheeling?"

 

"If I'm being honest, it doesn't bother me at all. It's actually a nice place to be, in the background. I don't have to play it up like Zayn and Liam or to play it down like Harry and Louis. I can just be myself. On the other hand, I quite like acting, I enjoy goofing around and I think I would be quite good at glancing at Zayn with barely suppressed lust or looking at Louis with eyes full of longing. That said, even as it is, I don't think I'm being a killjoy in this virtual love fest. If there is a golden opportunity for me to kiss and hug one of the band or to ruffle his hair with fondness, I won't let it pass."

 

Mike nodded approvingly. "That's the perfect spirit. But you do know that nothing forces you to play the role of the unpaired one, you can also play at being in love with Liam, even if Zayn is supposedly dating him already, or Harry or Louis. That pottery scene during 1D day was a good start already. Seeing that all of this is meant to be fantasy fodder for your fans, being faithful or present a coherent narrative is not a necessity. You can outrageously flirt with whoever you want, I don't think it'll ever make slash fans angry to discover more slashy undertones in how you behave with each other."

 

"Are you so sure about that? Aren't there such things as pairing wars? I heard that there was no love lost between fans of conflicting pairings. I've read some things on Twitter that were quite scary," asked Harry, who, although he looked like he had just woken up from a deep and satisfying slumber, must have had paid more attention than he let on.

 

Mike chortled. "Once again, I must say I am pleasantly surprised by how aware you are of that whole phenomenon. You're right that some tensions can arise. But they are to me signs of a pathological relationship to fandom. All this must remain a game, a way to have fun, both for you and for your fans, and if for some reason it stops being fun for some people, let them sulk, and don't worry about them. Your role as pop stars is to make people happy and if you can't make all the people happy all the time, at least make sure that those you make the happiest are those who don't let negative emotions get in the way of being a fan. Don't concern yourself with the others. Besides, to some fans, the absolute pinnacle of bliss would be for the five of you to be in a poly-amorous relationship, to live together as a fivesome in a big house where there is just one huge bed full of pillows, preferably with a mirror on the ceiling. So, in that perspective, Niall is entitled to flirt with everyone if he feels like it."

 

That idea of that big 1D house seemed to raise Niall and Liam's interest and they immediately started planning its layout, which was good, because it gave Mike a few well-needed minutes to remove the image of that bed covered with pillows and naked bodies from the forefront of his mind.

 

"And now we come to you, Harry, and to you, Louis. First, I should ask you to clear something up for me. Many fans are convinced that at some point last year, you were asked by management to stop interacting altogether and that, from that point, any interaction between the two of you had first to be vetted by your PRs. Is there truth in that?"

 

Unsurprisingly, it was Harry who answered. "Some. We were asked to tone down the touching and the hugging during our US media tour last year because of some gay rumours. For some reason, management is always much more concerned by those when we are in the US. To be honest, it didn't affect me one way or the other but Louis took it pretty badly. So I just avoided sitting next to him during interviews and paid more attention to the audience and to the other guys. In truth, I never minded the gay rumours about myself. I feel quite secure with who I am and if I'm not manly enough for some American jocks I'm not going to get all worked up about it. Yes, I worked in a bakery, yes I once put flowers in my hair, yes, I'm useless with a football, yes one of my best friend is an openly gay BBC radio presenter but hey, it's still me who banged Taylor Swift, so it's quite clear to me who's the winner here."

 

"Quite," said Mike, before impishly adding, "So it's true then, you really did bang her?"

 

"Yep," answered Harry, with a Cheshire cat-who-got-the-milk smile.

 

Mike put his thumb up in approval. "Good for you... And you're right about one thing. I browsed blogs and tumblrs to prepare for this meeting and it clearly appears that gay rumours about you are much more prevalent in the US than in the rest of the world. Just like it is for someone like Daniel Radcliffe for instance. The US sometimes have a strange view of what manliness is. Then again, I suppose it's just proof that we are not as culturally alike as we like to think, although having cricket instead of American football as a national sport was already quite a big clue."

 

"Hey, man. Don't diss American football. I'm a huge fan", said Harry with a smile.

 

"Well, that settles it then. You're plenty manly. Going back to Louis and you, would you say that, even when there are no cameras around, your friendship has suffered from management requesting that you stay away from each other?", asked Mike.

 

"To some extent, yes. Our interaction has certainly become more awkward and we are quite clearly no longer each other's number one confidant. As a result, Louis grew closer to Zayn and I grew closer to.... well, my family, mainly, if I'm being honest."

 

"Does it make you sad? Would you like to recapture the obvious and open friendship the two of you shared before?", asked Mike.

 

"Sure, even though I probably don't need it quite as much as I did at the time. I'm not so young and innocent now that I need an older guy to show me the ropes. Because, when all those fans thought we were secretly dating, Louis was most probably telling me about his tricks for pulling girls. There were not always good tricks. In fact, most of them were terrible and dorky. I'm not sure Louis' peculiar sense of humour works well on girls that are not Eleanor.... but, as the oldest in the band, he sure enjoyed giving me some advice. I suppose he might have liked the idea of living the life of a single guy through me," said Harry.

 

"That's it," interrupted Louis. "Eleanor and I were already getting quite serious at that stage and I was just enjoying moulding Harry into the ultimate heart-breaker, although in truth he didn't really need my help. From the moment I met him he only needed to smile for girls to fall at his feet. I could also add that, for the last two years, Harry has by no means been the only one flaunting his celebrity status at girls. We've all become outrageous flirts. Even if some of us manage to keep more self-control about it than others, and by some of us I mean mainly me, it's fair to say none of us would find it difficult to pull girls at the moment... So, you see, that friendship between me and Harry was always quite innocent. So, when management made that request in the US, it took me by surprise and I confess I reacted badly. I don't read the tweets I receive as much as some of the other guys and I had no idea those rumours about Harry and me were so widespread. For a few weeks afterwards, I completely froze whenever we were in the same room. I was second-guessing everything I did around him."

 

At that point, Mike interrupted Louis. "And you took it that badly because you didn't want to appear gay. I can totally understand that if it's something that has been haunting you since you were a child. But now that you are a mega-successful grown man, now that you probably have more money in the bank than any tabloid journalists, surely things are different. You're no longer the small guy who uses humour and sass as a defense mechanism in the school yard. You are a world-conquering pop hero. Who cares what people think about you any more? Is there no way you can get to the point that you just don't care about rumours, like Joseph Gordon-Levitt or George Clooney? I'm pretty sure it is a much less stressful way to deal with it than the paranoid Tom Cruise-John Travolta way. If in your heart you have no doubt about yourself, you should just let them talk."

 

"I really wish I could. It would make my life easier, believe me, but I can't. I'm sorry. The thought still terrifies me," answered Louis. And to his credit, he really looked sorry about the whole thing.

 

"Well, I can't force you into anything. I would suggest some form of therapy if you were feeling up to it. It can only help but, in any case, it's not imperative that you play the slash card if you don't want to.... although that nips in the bud that great idea I had for a T-shirt you could sell at concerts. It would have had "Larry is real" in big letters on the front, then on the back a picture of Larry King and, written in a smaller font "And he even wore suspenders... A coincidence? I think not."

 

Zayn and Niall snorted.

 

"See. That even got a laugh. I knew it was a great idea! But, because of you, Louis, I won't get any royalties from it... And I really could have used the money," added Mike with a sigh, before going back to business. "That said, Harry, you could still play up the bromance with the other guys if you wanted to, maybe you could even help Niall get rid of his third-wheel status. Narry is no Larry, but it still has a nice ring to it. It even sounds like a self-negating pairing, which I quite like. I must confess it's not my OTP but at least it would amuse the word-lover in me."

 

At that point, Liam looked at Zayn in confusion. Zayn leaned toward him and whispered that nary was an old word, used as a negation. Liam then turned back to Mike with a smile, as if to say that he had got it and was now ready to follow the end of the conversation.

 

"So," continued Mike. "That was Rule Three: play up the rumours about you, at least those you are comfortable with... I mean, even after three years, you probably still feel like you are normal people caught in a never-ending media circus. In that situation, making fun of the discrepancies between who you are and how you are perceived is quite a normal reaction, and a much healthier one than wanting to correct everything that is said or written about you... So my advice would be that you release a statement saying once and for all that, as public characters, you are quite prepared to face rumours of all kinds, but also adding that your families and loved ones are and will stay off-limits. In my opinion, you should be much stricter in the way you deal with fans harassing your entourage. Any hateful comment or tweet sent to Eleanor or Sophia for instance should be automatically threatened with police action."

 

"That would be good, yes," said Louis. "Eleanor told me yesterday she had received another death threat."

 

"Precisely my point. And I think you would be totally entitled to get the police involved in this, and to make it known in the press. I'm sure that the overwhelming majority of your fans would be behind you if you were to do it... the good fans I mean, those you'd like to keep."


	5. In the end, it doesn't really matter!

Mike continued, "So, I suppose what I mean is that you should play more with your image, take more gambles with it in a way. Management has a vested interest in you evolving, as people, at a snail's pace. If they could, they would give you surgery every month to make it look like you don't age. They would be happy to book you for the same show, to strike the same endorsement deals year after year, for ever. They are desperate for the status quo to last as long as possible as far as your image is concerned."

"On the other hand though, and that's always been to me the weirdest part of how the showbiz world work, they try very hard to make your music evolve from teen pop toward some kind of tepid adult-orientated soft-rock, and I suspect that this is a trend you actually encourage. And why wouldn't you? For you, it must feel like this is the only part of your job that is actually allowed to change, that doesn't trap you into the mould of who you were at 16 or 17. Musically at least, you're growing up and I suspect that, on some level, it must bring you comfort."

Liam vigorously nodded. "Yes, totally. We've been given a somewhat bigger input in the music on this album, and we did decide for it to be a bit rockier, and also more acoustic, with less synth sounds. And yes, it does feel good that, while we still have to play with silly strings and clothes pegs for the Teen Awards, our growing up is at least acknowledged a little by the music we put out."

"That's what I thought," said Mike. "But if I can be frank, I think it's a mistake. I don't like what I've heard of Midnight Memories so far. Most of the album is very average pop-rock. Apart from Story of My Life, which is quite clearly the best thing you've ever done, there is nothing on there on the level of Little Things or even What Makes You Beautiful. I heard that Ed Sheeran didn't want to write for you guys this time, having his own difficult second album to think about, but I'm at a loss as to why you didn't use any Swedish-pop songs on this album. Has there been some kind falling out between you and Rami Yacoub? What happened there?"

Niall answered, "I'm not quite sure. I don't think songs written by his team were presented to us, although I think Carl Falk appears somewhere in the credits. But the whole writing and recording process was long and, while we had more input this time, we didn't make all the final decisions. Don't forget we were also touring and making a film at the time. So quite a bit of the whole process went above our heads. I mean, I'm sure that if we had been asked to listen to a song as great and effective as "What Makes You Beautiful", we wouldn't have turned it down just because it was too poppy. Despite that decision Liam told you about, we all like pop music. We wouldn't turn down an amazing song just because we find it too shallow. We are not that kind of band, not yet in any case."

"Well, I might have wanted to turn down a song for those reasons," interrupted Harry. "But I can't say I remember it happening. So either the Swedish guys weren't asked this time by Syco or the songs they wrote were not good enough and we didn't even get to listen to them."

Mike shook his head slightly. "Seeing Rami's track record, I must say the latter seems rather unlikely. It's much more plausible that a decision has been made from the start not to use him for this album."

Mike then stayed silent for a few moments, pondering carefully his next words. "To me, this attitude goes typically into what I called earlier the Backstreet-Boys-fading-away: rejecting your pop roots to try and get more credibility via your music. I can't think of a single instance where this actually did work for a boy-band, but, still, record companies go that road, over and over again."

Louis interrupted, slightly animated. "Obviously, you're entitled to your opinion and I wouldn't want to deprive you of it, but I'm not sure why you feel like we should care. The five of us like that album. We all think it's the best thing we've ever done. Doesn't that count for something, especially if you're really trying to protect our interests as you claim to be?"

Mike looked at Louis with surprise, "So you really think, deep down, that, for instance, Midnight Memories is one of your strongest songs to date? You're not just saying that because you have to, because this is what pop-stars do when promoting their latest output, say that it's the best thing they've ever done?"

"As a matter of fact, yes, I do, it's a great pop song with an amazing power chorus that will work great for our stadium tour," said Louis, looking around to get confirmations from his band-mates. He got two out of four, which was more than Mike would have thought, and just enough to make it a majority opinion.

"Well, fair enough then. Let's agree to disagree about the music. In any case, it will be for some time a question with no definitive answer. We'll only know how good the album really was when we get some numbers for its long-term sales, and even more importantly, for the next album. But I must say I'd be very surprised if Midnight Memories sells much after the first few weeks. Most of it is very quickly forgettable rocky-pop."

After a few moments of silence, Mike resumed, "Anyway, even if you don't agree with me, that was my advice music-wise. Embrace the teen-pop aspect of your musical input. You are a boy-band, which is a group with five male voices who have to share verses and choruses and sometimes harmonize. This is not an ideal line-up for singing rock songs. If AOR-rock really is the way you want to go, I strongly advise that you select one or maybe two main singers and leave only backing vocals to the others. Rock music is all about the charisma of the leaders, it doesn't work well with shared vocals. It never has. It never will."

"From what I know about your musical background, the bands you like and so on, I really thought you would agree with me on that, but it seems like we don't, which is a shame and sadly quite heavily jeopardize my role here. Still, I have one more thing to say. I might as well say it now."

"As I've just told you, your record company and your management have one perfect plan they would love to stick to: make it so that your musical output go from teen pop to some kind of soft-indie-rock, while your media image stays basically the same. I, on the other hand, think you should do exactly the opposite, which is get your music to stay roughly in the same vein, which is synth teen-pop, while your image evolves. I've already said what I needed to say about the music. Now let's talk about the image."

Mike looked around to the five members of One Direction. At least, they all seemed willing to listen to him for a bit longer, even though Niall was regularly glancing to his watch with a frown.

"In my opinion, your image needs to change if you want to stay relevant, and to change quickly. I'm convinced fans can accept bouncy, light-hearted, synth-pop songs from you if, while singing then, you're ageing before their eyes, becoming adults, daring to express opinions they can look up to, and confront themselves with. You need to stop being two-dimensional pin-ups with no depth and become human beings that somehow fans can empathise with. In other words, you need to grow up as people, at the same pace as they do."

"And that is something you're really struggling with lately, which makes for some bizarre inconsistencies. On the one hand, you have Harry's being all candid about his double-digit number of sexual partners in GQ. On the other hand, during 1D-day, I was amazed that two minutes after boasting about how more mature your third album was, you answered Piers Morgan's question about your love lives by saying the 5 of you put together had kissed less than twenty girls. It was quite frankly ridiculous, and to some extent it was a mockery of the honesty on which you claim to base your relationship to fans. It's probably stupid but, when hearing those answers, I felt something not dissimilar to a sense of betrayal, like you were taking me and all your other fans for fools, being hypocrites, saying things you didn't mean, like pre-programmed robots, just to get more money out of us."

Niall answered, "Actually. I totally agree with you on that part. I think those answers to Piers Morgan were ridiculous and very poorly thought-of beforehand. That's the one aspect of 1D-day that I'd change if I could."

Mike nodded. "Thanks Niall. That's reassuring. It only emphasize the need for you to start acknowledging that, in those matters, you're no longer who you were three years ago. Forget guitars and rock choruses, it's in interviews and in television appearances that you have to show you're growing up. And remember that growing up does not in my mind mean taking yourselves seriously. On the contrary, growing up means knowing where you stand and being able to look at it with distance and irony. Having fun and especially looking like you're having fun is still of the utmost importance."

"And that's not what you're doing at the moment. To anyone with eyes and the time and energy to follow your appearances around the world,  it becomes clearer and clearer that you're playing a part that you're no longer comfortable with, especially you Harry, and you Louis. As I said before, doing so is probably the surest way to lose fans, and to lose them quickly. You need to start talking about movies you like, and by that I mean movies you really like, not movies you're paid to advertise for. You need to talk about books, about politics, about sports, about TV shows (and other ones than the X Factor or fucking Celebrity Big Brother), talk about how sometimes fans make your life hell if that's how you feel. Hey, you can even talk about your mortgages, about the thrill of signing your first personal lease or buying your first flat. You can even talk about the stock market if you really want to, although personally it'd bore me to death. Talk about everything you want but show that you actually have personal interests and a world view that is no longer taken from the first pages of the industry textbook about promoting a boy-band. Show some depth, give your fans an insight into who you really are, allow them to see behind the façade, even if it's in a very controlled way."

After a lengthy silence, Liam said, "Well, I suppose it's true that our tweets could probably reflect more closely what actually happens in our lives. But it's difficult to know what to say, and how to say it. I got into some problems a few days ago for tweeting about a TV show I enjoyed because I didn't know everything there was to know about its back story. Sometimes, I feel like it's easier to tweet banalities or just ask fans to buy our things."

Mike nodded, "I suppose you're talking about Duck Dynasty here? Yes, I agree. Your management really screwed up on that one. They should have issued some kind of statement or talked with you about what to say."

Liam looked sad, which means in turn that Zayn looked sad, while the other guys seemed completely unresponsive to their surroundings. Actually, everyone felt all talked out, especially Mike, who somehow felt that he had failed to make an impact, to get his point across.

Louis' two outbursts had made him doubt all the ideas, all the theories he had thought he could bring to the band. As silly as it sounded, and Mike was very aware of how silly it sounded, he was thinking that, it the band really liked Midnight Memories as a song, maybe he wasn't the right guy to help them. Everything he said came from the heart, fuelled by his hope that he could help empowering the band in some way, get them to be fully  themselves. And that obviously meant accepting they might have different opinions from his own and that he had no right to expect that to change. If he disagreed with the band on questions as essential as what music they should record, he probably wasn't the right guy for the job of helping them managing their image.

If there is one thing Mike could always depend on, it was his lucidity, his knowing precisely where his limits were, which is why he stood up from his chair and told the five guys he had just spent the morning with that he had finally come to the end of what he had to say to them, and that they were free to go. He then started slowly putting his things back in his bag.

Seeing that the meeting was over, Niall, Harry, Zayn and Liam stood up as well, quickly going to the door, after giving Mike an impersonal handshake and a small nod, meaning something like "Nice try, man, but no thanks. We won't do it your way. We'll stick with Syco's plans for the moment."

 

When the four of them had left, Mike noticed that Louis was still shuffling his feet around, as if he was unsure whether he should stay or go away. Eventually, he made a few steps toward Mike and held his hand for Mike to shake. "Thanks man, thanks for taking the time to tell us what you think. It's clear you did it out of love, and we all appreciate that..... Do you think we could, I don't know, go out for a drink or something?", he said. "I'd love to discuss all of this in more detail... about the music and stuff."

Mike was surprised but would have been a fool to say no, Eleanor be damned. That was the beginning of something great, that would transform his and Louis' lives.

 

The end.

\-----

Oh, come on, you didn't believe the last two paragraphs were real, did you? It's not that kind of fic.

 

In actual fact, Louis was the first to get out of the meeting room and Mike was fired by text, just a couple of hours after leaving Sony's headquarters. To this day, he's never seen any of them in the flesh again, although he's still going to see them in Dusseldorf for their stadium tour in the summer. Tiny dots moving around on a huge stage, some 100 meters away or so.

Will he enjoy the show? Yes, probably, even the songs he thinks are less than good. After all, and before everything, he's a fan....but he will probably see that show as their swan song, thinking they are going to botch up the next stage of their career and probably call it quits quite quickly after that, probably early to mid-2015.

But does it really matter? Reading this, you might have thought Mike was an arrogant bag of shit and that all his ideas were stupid, or you might have thought he was right about everything and that it would be amazing if he was actually in charge of 1D's future. Either way, it won't make much difference in the end.

Fandoms have a great ability to bounce back from whatever shit canon throws at them. Even if the band ends up fading into obscurity within months, being mere footnotes in the great History of pop, Harry, Liam, Louis, Niall and Zayn will always stay in our heads, cherished. We'll cling to our memories of actual songs or videos, or fondly remember fics we read or tumblrs we participated in. In our minds, they will always be (mostly) happy and nice (especially to each other). And that is as it should be. Our role as fans is not to influence them as real people, it is to make the most of what they give us, be it an impersonal stadium tour and a rushed retrospective greatest hits album in 2014, or 10 more years of silly videos, great songs, dimples, questionable tattoos, braceless smiles and giddiness.

Any disappointment we might feel at their next moves will always be short-lived, quickly replaced by the opportunities those moves gave us to reinvent them in our fashion.

So let's play!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait. I'm glad I finally made it to the end of this. As with everything I write, it turned out to be more meta-commentary than actual fic, but I suppose that's the way my fandom brain is wired.
> 
> I have no doubt that, by wanting to go beyond the scenes, I ended up being very candid and naive in some ways while showing the band and their entourage to be much more cynical than they are in others. Still, it was an honest attempt on my part to get the balance right between those two.
> 
> Thanks for reading.
> 
> Any kind of constructive criticism (including mention of spelling and grammar mistakes) is welcome.


End file.
